The flax brake is made up of two wooden boards fastened side by side on an easel and hinged on one end to a third board (the beater or scutcher), in a way that this can be raised or lowered using a handgrip, in the space provided.

The stalks of flax or hemp placed crosswise on the fixed boards were vigorously beaten by the action of the scutching knife.

The purpose of the scutching or breaking process was to separate the raw fibres from the woodenpart of the stalks.

This latest expression, “graciòla”, differentiates itself from the true and proper flax brake because it was made up of two scutching knives used to further refine the hemp, getting its name from the sound emitted by the wooden boards hitting each other which was similar to the croaking (“gracidare”) of frogs.